Run
by SpellStrike
Summary: Sam goes out for a run but starts to experience flash backs


**Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed my last story! it was lovely to know that other people enjoyed reading it! unfortunately at the moment I have no ideas for a second chapter so will have to leave it for a while :( **

**but... here is a different one-shot hope you enjoy it ( please let me know what you think) thank you :)**

**italic is a flash back **

If I was asked why I run I would never give a straight answer: too feel the wind in my hair; take in the surroundings; never the correct answer, never the truth. It clears my head - helps me forget about everything else - to escape the world around me. I came home to find JLS splitting up, people on music tours, horse meat in food, Scotland wanting independence, the top headlines. What about James Croft, Mike Smith, Hayleigh Jones: people who have been brave, courageous, that deserve to be known. The people who have done something for their country not just sat around doing nothing.

I take my normal route past the canal and Dylan's boat then to the park, the weather is gloomy but bearable.

_Everywhere around me is dark, the ride in is always the worst bit; not knowing what you will face when you get there or if you will be able to save all the lives of the injured people. We all knew the drill: 10 minutes on the ground to help all the casualties and clear the building, then in the helicopter to go back to the base. We had been called to a small cafe about a mile from our camp, Bastian, but it was still risky. There had been a suicide bomber and we were on red alert for a second wave attack. Afghanistan was no place of fun we were there for a purpose a purpose to save lives._

I need to keep going, rid my head of the memories, the bad times, the times I want to forget. I keep going and push myself, not letting the thoughts break into my head. Not letting my guard down and let people see me as weak.

_We grabbed on to all our kit and sat in the brace position as we started the decent. The well-known bumpy landing arrived again and we all scrambled off the Chinook to see in front of us a barely standing building. We couldn't stop the countdown had started; Casualties had to be treated in order of urgency be it military personnel or Afghani locals. We had to work as fast as possible and make no mistakes; time wasting was not an option._

There is no stopping the memory; it likes to make itself known, but not this time, not this mission. I can remember it clearly, like it was yesterday.

_I ran into the room of rubble, my eyes darted around trying to find a casualty to treat amongst the unsettled smoke. I found an Afghani man who must have been in his mid-thirties. He had fallen on something sharp when the blast had hit and was bleeding heavily, I had to try and get some fluids in him quickly._

I keep running my calves burning, my stomach tangled like a rope, but I have to keep going. My lungs want me to stop, but the pain is offering a welcome distraction from the bad times.

_I heard the shout from a distance_

"_BOMB." I dived down on top of my patient and put my hands over my head this was the command we all dreaded. The explosion shook my body but I kept as still as possible._

I am no longer in the park but miles across the earth amidst the horror I want to forget, horror that no one could comprehend.

_After followed a silence; a pause that would scare fully grown men. I slowly got up to find out the damage and see what I could do._

"_DOCTOR" a call came from the next room. I left my now stable patient and ran to the next room. I froze. People lay on the floor amongst the rubble; I didn't know where to start._

I find myself on the floor gasping for air, what had happened, why do I let the memories in. I gasp taking in the air like it is the last thing left in the world.

_I began to treat my friend Mike; there is no amount of training that could prepare you for this job._

"_Four minutes remaining" I heard someone shout, we needed to get as many people out as possible. People arrived with stretchers and took casualties away on my command. I had to put aside the fact I knew these people. I couldn't get emotionally involved it would not end well._

I can't breathe properly, choking on the terror that has managed to make its way back into my life, the terror that I am longing not to relive.

_'Mission abort, mission abort' there is no choice we had to go we'd tried our best – but sometimes it could never be good enough. Work didn't stop even now we were in the haven of the cramped helicopter; casualties still need our full attention even in the short trip back to camp. Adrenaline still pumped through my vein's numbing me against what had just happened. The landing was bumpy but safe; we all rushed of quickly to get our patients in to the hospital. I had to brief the hospital medic team of the conditions of the casualties, they were their problem now._

Slowly I get up and lean against a tree, I try to fix my mind on to something else. Anything but that mission: my flat, my family, my friends, Dylan.

_I walked out of the makeshift hospital with the rest of my team. A layer of grime had coated my face there was dust in my long blonde hair but I still had to attend a debrief. Being the highest rank, it was my duty to inform the commanding officer that we had lost people James Croft, Mike Smith, Hayleigh Jones. Colleges of mine, friends, people who had trusted me._

My body is visibly shaking at the thought of that day, the bomb scare and at the devastation war can do to so many lives. The memorial is constantly in my head, the last reminder of them. 'When you go home tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow we gave our today.'


End file.
